Water Sucked into S3 Engine

CLSmooth

CLSmooth

Registered User
Joined
May 9, 2011
Messages
34
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Location
London
Urgent help required

Last Thursday whilst driving my S3 to work in the rain I hit a puddle at the side of the road and water was sucked into the engine causing catastophic damage to the engine. I'm going to need a replacment S3 engine to get it back on the road. Can anyone help with sourcing a reconditioned engine?

Your help would be greatly appreciated because I want to see my motor back on the road.

Cheers,

Chris
 
check in the for sale section. ideally, you should check what damage has been done as it could be cheaper to replace parts of the engine depending what's damaged.do you have a cold air intake?
 
I was completely shocked when the garage told me, it wasn't a big puddle at all. the damage is going to be properly assessed by the insurance approved garage today. Will see what it needs then. Is this a design fault of the S3?
 
The air intakes were just standard fitted, Paradox1 is there a way I can stop this in the future?
 
Driven through around 18-20 inches of water in my a3 and never had a problem, I know this doesn't help, but it does beg the question: When does a puddle become a lake/pond? There was an engine in the classified section last week, which might be worth a look.
 
are you sure you've hydrolocked your engine?? standard airfilter set up there is no way water could get in there. and it would take alot of water to do so. and a ****** deep puddle, and you'd have to be WOT through it too
 
scott b5
There was no response with the accelerator so I thought it had stalled, went to restart because I was on a 60mph road with no luck. The EPC warning light (triangle with circular arrow around) was on an did not go off. Had to be recovered by RAC. Mechanics that I use had a look and said the crank was not turning in the engine (suspected crank had snapped or piston into valves?)
Not good news at all!!
 
CLSmooth said:
scott b5
There was no response with the accelerator so I thought it had stalled, went to restart because I was on a 60mph road with no luck. The EPC warning light (triangle with circular arrow around) was on an did not go off. Had to be recovered by RAC. Mechanics that I use had a look and said the crank was not turning in the engine (suspected crank had snapped or piston into valves?)
Not good news at all!!
Click to expand...

Take the spark plugs out and see what comes out of the holes.
If its hydrolocked then you'll be getting a nice amount of water out.
If not, then something else happened.

I assume you hit this puddle at about 60mph?
 
Yeah roughly, just accelerating after turning a corner. I'll see what the garage finds and if there's water in there.
 
I would put this down to timing belt snapping or you have ran the s3 low on oil and sized the bottom end. I had a bent conrod in my old GTI6 and boy did it make some noise wen it went! Massive back fire and the whole engine just locked up!
 
Although its a pun given the circumstances, it DOES "sound fishy"

The air intake snorkel is mounted up high, at the top edge of the grille. Getting water in there would require some pretty drastic wading with water coming in the doors...

Or as someone suggested above, hitting the "puddle" fast enough to create a bow wave up the front of the car. But even that, would require a puddle to be higher than the lower edge of the front bumper, yet the OP says it wasnt a deep puddle...

Makes no sense to me.
 
the cambelt was 2 months old because I changed it when the car got to 80k miles
 
there was no noise or fire here at all temp levels were good too. oil level was good because i check it monthly. really odd all round.
 
It really wasn't deep at all that's why I was totally shocked that this was the outcome.

aragorn said:
Although its a pun given the circumstances, it DOES "sound fishy"

The air intake snorkel is mounted up high, at the top edge of the grille. Getting water in there would require some pretty drastic wading with water coming in the doors...

Or as someone suggested above, hitting the "puddle" fast enough to create a bow wave up the front of the car. But even that, would require a puddle to be higher than the lower edge of the front bumper, yet the OP says it wasnt a deep puddle...

Makes no sense to me.
Click to expand...
 
Get to the car and check the air filter for wetness, remove plugs and turn engine over by hand and see if water comes out of the spark plugs.
 
CLSmooth said:
I could have just rolled it back into the puddle if it was on fire!
Click to expand...

Then any fish in there would have been steam ******. WIN WIN.

In all seriousness, I think it would help if you haddocklue what was up. Do you know the mechanic, or is it just the nearest garage?
 
sorry, unless you poured a gallon of water into the air intake it would have been fine, coming from a motorcycle enduro background i know for a fact water simply makes engines stall if it gets inside the cylinder

i really think the puddle had nothing to do with your problem or you are having now
 
your getting flooded with replies here. but, it just sounds fishy.
i dont see how this cod have happened. what plaice have you taken your car to?
 
  • Like
Reactions: dancarpy
I know the mechanic and he said it was water. I had to contact insurance in order to get a courtesy car and they have to use an approved garage who I don't know. They may just say it's a right off?! It's too tidy to scrap though...

Reesy said:
Then any fish in there would have been steam ******. WIN WIN.

In all seriousness, I think it would help if you haddocklue what was up. Do you know the mechanic, or is it just the nearest garage?
Click to expand...
 
CLSmooth said:
I know the mechanic and he said it was water. I had to contact insurance in order to get a courtesy car and they have to use an approved garage who I don't know. They may just say it's a right off?! It's too tidy to scrap though...
Click to expand...
Thats because they know that they could mackerel easy money out of your motor mate, and they would be squids in. Tell them you don't want it written off, although it shouldn't go that far anyway, as engines for these cars can be got for reasonably cheap money.
 
As I'm not a mechanic myself I have to go on the response from the experts. The mechanic I go to only deals with high performance cars so I have to trust him somewhat.

colicabcadam said:
sorry, unless you poured a gallon of water into the air intake it would have been fine, coming from a motorcycle enduro background i know for a fact water simply makes engines stall if it gets inside the cylinder

i really think the puddle had nothing to do with your problem or you are having now
Click to expand...
 
i agree with Reesy!

Dont let the insurance companies feed you a can of worms mate, make sure you get the car back. If it is written off you can strip it and sell the parts for decent money....
 
I'll hope to red snapper one up then and be having a whale of time in the S3 again sometime!

Reesy said:
Thats because they know that they could mackerel easy money out of your motor mate, and they would be squids in. Tell them you don't want it written off, although it shouldn't go that far anyway, as engines for these cars can be got for reasonably cheap money.
Click to expand...
 
Just watch out for insurance approved garages, there's lots of sharks about....be careful if its modded to, the mechanics will be having a whale of a time removing the pricey mods.
 
I'd be surprised if the sole reason for this problem was the taking in of water, also was your s3 tuna'd?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

jediknight
engine swap.... 3.2v6 into the a3 / s3?
Replies
46
Views
36K
Knarry
Knarry
devan
Engine bay part which connects into TIP (S3)
Replies
4
Views
920
Welly
Welly
J
Aux Water Pump Leaking - S3 AMK Engine
Replies
10
Views
4K
fingermouse
fingermouse
ceS3r
Water leaking into driver's footwell
Replies
2
Views
1K
ceS3r
ceS3r
M
water leak into passenger footwell
Replies
6
Views
2K
marlow77
M
Top
Back